Pittsfield's Walmart Supercenter project faces uncertainty

A parcel at the William Stanley Business Park in Pittsfield had been eyed as the home of a Walmart Supercenter, but that project faced uncertainty on Tuesday.

EAGLE FILE

Posted
Tuesday, November 14, 2017 9:21 pm

By Amanda Drane , The Berkshire Eagle

PITTSFIELD — Confusion abounded on Tuesday after a representative for Walmart said the company does not plan to go forward with a supercenter in the city.

Katie Kinne of Slowey/McManus Communications sent a statement to The Eagle on Tuesday afternoon from Phil Keene, director of corporate communications for Walmart.

"While we no longer plan to relocate our store in Pittsfield, we are committed to continuing our investment and community involvement in Western Massachusetts," the statement reads. "Waterstone's decision to proceed with entitlement is their decision, however at the current time we no longer plan to relocate our store in Pittsfield. We remain very grateful for the support and professionalism of Pittsfield's leadership while we worked through the development process and we look forward to continuing to serve our customers at our existing location in the city and online at Walmart.com."

The statement comes in stark contrast with what happened just one day prior, when attorneys representing Waterstone Retail filed architectural documents with City Hall for the Woodlawn Crossing project on a 200,000 square-foot Walmart Supercenter along Woodlawn Avenue at the William Stanley Business Park.

Officials in City Hall confirmed late Tuesday afternoon they'd received some sort of update on the matter but that the application for site plan approval had not been withdrawn.

Donn Harr, an agent of Waterstone responsible for overseeing Monday's filing, had few words regarding the status of the project.

"We've been working on this all day," he said around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. "I'm not able to comment."

Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@berkshireeagle.com, @amandadrane on Twitter or at 413-496-6296.

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